Everyone sleeps with their phones because it’s the last thing we use when we sleep and the first thing we pick up when we wake. While Android Authority’s poll shows that about one in two people sleep with their phone, I still strongly believe that the other half are either too shy to state this or are mostly being economical with the truth.
In this blog, we will quickly go over why sleeping with your phone is bad for your health. While it might seem that I am pointing a finger at you, I have three other fingers pointing back at myself.
First let’s define what it means to sleep with your phone. According to researchers, you are considered to be sleeping with your phone if your device is in the same sleeping space with you all through the night since the impact that having that device with you in your sleeping space is the exact same. So as you see, you don’t necessarily have to have your phone on your bed or next to you before you are considered to be sleeping with your phone.
Now that we have that out of the way, I would like to also go ahead with what having your phone with you at night does to your sleep and health.
Table of Contents
- Reduced Sleep Quality
- Disruption of Circadian Rhythm
- Activation of Alertness
- Fire or Burn Risk
- Conclusion
Reduced Sleep Quality
According to this report, having your phone with you at night would reduce your sleep quality and quantity while increasing they chances of you feeling sleepy during the day.
Disruption of Circadian Rhythm
While this might be a new word to most people reading my blog, it’s probably not new if you are in the health or professional beauty space. This simply put, is your natural sleep and wake cycle. This is caused by the blue light that comes from your device screens as it inhibits the production of melatonin, the hormone that makes you drowsy thereby lengthening the time needed to fall asleep.
This disruption of the circadian rhythm is most significant in toddlers and children and is most likely the primary reason why most people will recommend that kids do not have access to phones and smart devices before a certain age.
Activation of Alertness
As we know, phones are one of the most used devices that people use to consume information and for this reason, chances are you are reading a text, blog or news before and after waking and that means that having your phone with you will make it more difficult to fall asleep since the mind is still actively trying to consume information.
Fire or Burn Risk
Chances are that if you are in Nigeria, not only do you have your phone with you at bed time, you also have a powerbank with you. If this is the case, you are at a higher risk of fire and burn risks. While I am not trying to scare you, I am certain that at times, you have read reports or news articles that have described how phones or power banks exploded or unexplainably went up in flames while people were sleeping. Prevention is always a wiser choice and I would encourage you to not wait to find out if your phone could explode.
Conclusion
You would agree with me that your sleep quality, quantity, and safety is of high importance, and while the urge to have our most loved devices with us at night, it is better, and it will be great to switch to a better life by leaving our phones out of sight at night before going to bed.
A great way to ease into this new habit will be to watch a movie before going to bed and leaving your device plugged in another room before going to bed. There’s a really high chance it won’t overcharge.
